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What's in store for 2017

25 January 2017

You know that fresh feeling you get starting into a new year? We're definitely feeling it, especially since there's exciting news to share about 2017 at Bitmaker! We’ve been working closely with our new colleagues at General Assembly over the past 6 months and have some updates on what’s next for us.

General Assembly Bitmaker

We've started the rollout of a new combined logo to introduce the globally-recognized General Assembly brand to Toronto. See any of the new swag around town yet? Starting with our January Web Development class, all our incoming full-time students are getting some pretty awesome GA Bitmaker shirts and hoodies.

Perhaps there’s a plan in the works to supply alumni with the new goods… guess you’ll just have to see!

We’ve also been able to add some alumni perks over the past few months, including alumni office hours for our full-time grads. Web Development alumni can now book time with instructors to continue to hone their coding skills.

Likewise, we’re working hard on bringing more learning options and enhancing existing offerings with General Assembly. This collaboration is a valuable resource for effectively introducing top-notch, first-run courses.

Accredited in Ontario

Back in the middle of November, GA Bitmaker became an accredited private college in Ontario. Becoming accredited while maintaining our versatile, iterative curriculum allows us to provide both cutting-edge learning as well as additional student protections and greater access to financial assistance.

An immediate perk is that we are no longer required to charge HST for our full-time, vocational programs. Traditional lenders will also now be more receptive to offering student loans and FinanceIt remains a great option to borrow from for our courses.

The Ontario Second Career financing program can now be accessed by eligible students enrolling in a full-time program. We do expect our students to be able to access OSAP loan funding in the future, though a timeline for this is not yet set.

The Ministry of Advanced Education and Skill Development has provided an expedient process that has acknowledged the contribution of this new form of education to Ontario’s present and future economy. We're excited to keep innovating with our courses and pushing education further.

Course updates

Through constant improvements and enhanced career support, we’re incredibly proud of the value our immersive courses bring to students. Taught by top professionals joining us from companies like Mozilla, 500px, and Opera, we are committed to imparting our students with diverse, professional experience. For the first time in over 3 years, we’re raising the price on our full-time programs.

At GA Bitmaker, courses new and old undergo continuous iteration to meet the changing demands of the industry and adopt cutting-edge practices.

Starting Monday, our UX & Product Design course has been updated to 10 weeks in length, with new curriculum focusing on integrating design practices and technology – featuring supplemental coding skills and design practices for new interfaces like VR and wearables.

Likewise, over the past few Web Development cohorts, we’ve deepened our front-end development content and improved our JavaScript content. You can check out the details of the update here.

As always, thank you for being a part of our community – we can't do it without all of you!